ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli will travel to the International Space Station in December on a six-month mission, serving as flight engineer for Expeditions 26 and 27. This will be the third long-duration mission by a European astronaut on the Station.

Media are invited to learn more about his mission at a press conference in ESTEC, Noordwijk, the Netherlands, hosted by Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of Human Spaceflight, with a live link to Paolo Nespoli in Houston.

Paolo will be launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in mid-December, together with Russian cosmonaut Dmitri Kondratyev and NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman.

Paolo is now in training for his challenging mission. His duties aboard the International Space Station (ISS) include receiving Europe's second ATV supply ferry Johannes Kepler and Japan's HTV. He will also carry out an intensive programme of scientific experiments and educational activities, ranging from radiation monitoring to study of sleep patterns in Space to treat insomnia on Earth.

His educational activities include promoting an international educational programme built around health, well-being and nutrition for children ('Mission X: train like an astronaut'). He will also use ESA's novel 3D camera to show unprecedented views of the ISS and Earth from space.

This will be Paolo's second time in space: he flew to the ISS on the Space Shuttle in 2007, on an Italian space agency flight opportunity, to deliver and install the Node-2 module. On his new mission, he will help to exploit the research capabilities of Europe's Columbus laboratory.

Programme

ESA/ESTEC, Erasmus CentreWednesday, 15 September 2010

(The programme will be presented in English)

13:30 Doors open
14:00 Human Spaceflight and Exploration in Europe, Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of Human Spaceflight
14:15 Mission overview
14:30 Science overview
14:45 Mission X: train like an astronaut
15:00 Live connection with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli (Questions and Answers)16:00 End of first part of the programme

Optional programme starting at 20:00

There will be an opportunity for media to listen to the entire crew presenting their life and work on the International Space Station. There will also be time allocated for media to ask questions to the whole crew.